Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

e e e call to order this regular meeting thanks of the city of Waynesboro Planning Commission Tuesday January 21st somebody like to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance absolutely all right pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right we have as some of you may have noticed the new face with us here tonight miss Keller is our newest planning commissioner I would like everybody to welcome her um I you want to say who you are and make a few comments about how you came to be on the Planning Commission or just

you know thank you so much well I appreciate that I want to thank lesie and alisanne thank you so much for the greeting last week um I'm really excited to support and serve our community I've got a lot to learn but um I'm really going to rely on you and I know that you guys can help me find my way I know Jeff so um I'm really looking forward to working with you getting to know you guys and really uh trying to support every effort and desires of the community thank you well excellent welcome welcome um and we yeah we are all on this board always learning I feel so um that's kind of the name of the game uh with that does anybody have a motion on the minutes we need to talk about the November 19th minutes and the December 3 I make a motion that we are review and approve the minutes of the meetings held November 19th 2024 and December 3rd 2024 I'll second all right all in favor I any opposed hearing none motion carries next on the agenda oh and we need to adopt the agenda I skipped that step sorry um anybody have a motion on adoption of the agenda I'll make a motion that we adopt the AG I'll second all right all in favor of adoption of the agenda I any opposed hearing none motion carries all right now sorry about that we have presentation by our director of Economic Development tourism here in the city of wboro Mr Hitchin we're moving fast here tonight good evening thank you for having me um I have to admit when Alice an said uh can you present to the

Planning Commission on economic development I said sure and then I said what am I going to tell him um how what can I possibly present to them and I thought immediately well we have a bunch of Economic Development 101 presentations that I can dust off or update or tweak or whatever and said no these people are Way Beyond Economic Development 101 so what I have tonight is kind of a mix of three things um some Statewide information on a on a document that our association has prepared for state general assembly members to kind of give a big picture of what economic development means to the state a um parts of our strategic plan that Nigel has been involved with and um something that most of my teammates call corny um but I'm going to go with it anyway so it's my four-legged stool of Economic Development so I'm going to refer back to this in a minute Jeff some of this might sound familiar so I'm going to rely on you for the Audi participation part so if we could just pass [Music] these one sorry not my fortune let's see here so what is economic development from the the state's perspective the regional perspective and the locality perspective it is a revenue generator all of the agencies in Economic Development their main goal is to build revenue and if you look at kind of the the brown box on the front page where economic development is the answer that's an average of What Revenue has

come to localities um over the past I think it's a 10year window so the state agency went back 10 years looked at all the tax revenue so property tax machinery and tools the things that were important to us lumped it all together and did an average so $7.7 million to a locality for um over that per per project look halfway down the page you'll see um what economic de development has meant to Virginia and where all the projects have located you'll see that most of the projects have come from expanding businesses not the new shiny businesses so we spent a lot of time um again we the Statewide we um nurturing relationships we'll talk about that more in a second to build those relationships so that hey we need to expand they're going to call us first not North Carolina or wherever they might call and then lastly um on the back page um I'm not going to read everything to you I know you can read what this says but the little brown box um halfway on the bottom half on the right hand side so State return on investment so every dollar that the general assembly gives to vedp it's an 8 to1 return and that return allows general assembly and our local elected officials to spend money on education and Roads and whatever that particular a locality needs to do so our goal is revenue generating we've done a pretty good job of Reven Revenue generating in the past and I think some of the things we'll talk about tonight um will you'll see that we kind of headed in that same direction locality I do want to make this um interactive so please feel free to stop me and ask a question as we go along um we're also I mentioned our strategic plan we're in the final stages

of of drafting the document we presented an outline to our task force uh which again Nigel is part of it includes two Eda members two city council members uh two staff city manager and four at large members who have been helping guide staff along the way um last summer you may have recall we did an online survey and we also went out and met with a dozen groups rotary being one which is why Jeff knows um some of this um to ask them very specific questions about what they would like to see so I thought I would give you the top five answers the first one definitely falls into your baileywick the other ones I think you'd be interested in so the by far away the number one how can we make wboro business question was downtown buildings how do we improve them how do we fix them up how do we um generate more Revenue since that time I did a little bit of study I looked at um Arch Federal Church and Broad that square calculated how many um first floor square feet we have how many were full how many were vacant this came this number was in September so it's changed a little bit but not quite we have a I think it was a 35% vacancy in that square but four buildings add up to 30% vacancy so four big buildings are the big big piece of no pun intended of um how vacancy in our downtown area second item was hey north of Grumman was pretty good we'd like another one of those um tourism we need to increase our activity in tourism we need more commercial space and our grow wesboro entrepreneur program is pretty good uh we just need to get it out more and do more with it and help train up more entrepreneurs so my stool the top we been to a spa this is

kind of the spa blue everybody's nice everybody's fine so this is prosperity that's our goal our mission statement the short version of our mission statement is to build community Prosperity so Community Prosperity means the different things to different people um for me and Mr Hamp and Mayor Lee it means generating revenue for the city to do other things but other folks maybe like the greenway you know that's their version of prosperity or family activities or being able to shop at Major stores or having a choice of shopping at Major stores or coming downtown to shop at Mom and Pop so Prosperity means different things to different people but that's our overall goal is building that Community Prosperity the blue stands for bring in new Revenue so that is um trying to attract new business trying to increase our tourism activity and working with our regional Partnerships to do both of those things and one of the five key goals that the task force approved is attract new investment jobs talent and visitors so how can we get more outside Revenue inside of the city not just trading dollars amongst ourselves we want new Revenue to come in the green okay any guesses green Spring's coming money money well yeah everything's money green is grow our existing businesses um again we help with expansions we try to build relationships with our companies so again hey we need to expand we need to buy new piece of equipment can you help us um I I need to do X Y and Z can you help us so that we do that a lot is try to help businesses grow expand here provide them resources we are not the expert in

everything but we know who the experts are and if someone calls us with something we can refer them to the state or another locality or not a locality another local um resource person for them so our second major goal out of our new strategic plan will be provide local business support So build up that relationship put more Tools in our toolbox to help them grow and expand yellow guesses this one's a little weird so Prosperity Prosperity so yellow Sunshine optimism what entrepreneurs are all about so this is build up our entrepreneur base we have a local Loan program it's a $115,000 Max loan usually 3% three years um e much easier to get than a bank um but it's something that we have to offer we have different zones throughout the city there's an Enterprise Zone there's a technology Zone a tourism Zone um each of them kind of overlay one another um but if you have a certain type of NES code and located in one of those businesses one of those zones there might be tax advantages tax incentives for you um again access to resources we're not the expert in everything but we know who the experts are and um support and training so beginning next month we have a a grow wesboro Wednesday so one day one Wednesday of the month there'll be someone from the chamber there there'll be someone from score there someone from the Small Business Development Center there um and then the fourth Wednesday of the month it will rotate so if you have a small business you need a question you want to talk to the chamber third Wednesday of every month come to our office to talk to the chamber which leads us to the third um of the five goals is deliver

entrepreneurship guidance so we're well into that and we try to provide the right resources and the right people for that so lastly orange stands for under construction or miscellaneous um Many Things fall into this um real estate uh we work with on our own own Industrial Park trying to get it ready to go work with other um Builders Property Owners developers and try to help them find the right resources that they might need to get their property up and running we maintain a database of all the property that's out there um we do marketing both on the tourism side and on the business side um selling our quality of place and lastly do branding and way finding um just try to help the visitors that are here so this app has two goals associated with it uh prepare opportunities for future investment that is um primarily our industrial park and the second one is communicate attributes achievements and opportunities so we have on a tourism side very heavy into social media and Partnerships marketing the area because quite frankly not many people know where wesboro is but they know where the shanid valley is um and we also do a little bit of marketing um on our Industrial Park although it's not quite ready yet so we're not doing a lot of marketing in that um five five websites four newsletters any number of different ways to try to get our message out to bunch of different audiences so that's my stool of Economic Development did that SP any questions spawn any I have a question um I actually have two the first question you talked about the the vacancies and and and that being a concern downtown are is the Eda do you have an

ongoing dialogue with with these building owners and trying to understand what their plans are if they have any um as as much as we can and the plan is they don't really have one a couple of them some of them there are plans and they're just stuck in neutral for whatever reason others don't have any plans and we just can't seem to move them off off center okay and and the second question um you're entrepreneurship and and and Ed Eda kind of sponsored U for small businesses what would you say your success rate is on with that um this last the last version we did was 100% uh we we gave out $1,000 to four businesses they're all still operating they're all still growing um several of them have um put in a lot of private of their own private investment into their business so definitely 100% over this last one um over the life of four or five entrepreneur type contests that we've done might be I'm guessing 60 70% something like that Greg um several years ago you shared with me a a survey that you'd been doing annually to outside businesses and what are the top things that they're looking for when they're moving into a community and I found some of those targets and you tracking that over a period of time very helpful and enlightening um though I haven't seen it in the last two years I would assume you know a solid work Workforce is going to be one of those primaries still I found that one of the intangibles on your list was quality of life that they were looking for um I guess I would go on the inverse of that with this question is when you talk with the businesses that

don't choose ways bro what are the impediments you know what are the things that have kept them from coming in here and if we gave you a magic wand today and said what are some things that we can do in this comprehensive plan as a community to remove some of those impediments what would you do so I guess two-part question what are some of the impediments you see to people choosing wboro and what can we do to remove those okay um I'll go one step further we don't get get a lot of look so as you might imagine 20 years ago nobody had any information about anything they had to come to you to ask questions they don't have to do that anymore we are now on the they don't come to us until we're on the short list and you're right real estate and Workforce one of those two things is the first question that they ask they assume you have internet now they assume you have electricity and water and um probably quality of life and I'll come back to answer your question but you're right again 20 years ago quality of life wasn't even on the survey and now it's um a very important consideration for the workforce anyway back to your question so we don't get a lot of look so we're not going to be headquarters location um International companies want to be with an hour of a direct international airport so we're not going to get those um anybody who needs a large Workforce we're not going to get those I'm large by thousands I mean we're not going to get those um what a comes down to we typically we um if it's a large company like that where the state is a partner in that this company is looking at multiple States probably also in the Southeast um at that point um it assuming there's a ready site it's reasonably FL all the things they're looking for if you're Apples to Apples

it will probably come down to State incentives um Virginia is not a heavy incentive state you we know that um it's probably what's going to come down to and we as a locality um typically we um if it's a commonwealth opportunity fund we have to match the state um but we typically would not go above what the state offers any um the magic wand side of things there we could do something that would make your job easier having a ready site is number one I think these days that's why we landed North with grommet we would not even been in a game if we did not have a ready site and by ready I mean um all the due diligence done um grading would be a bonus but people understand grading it takes a while um once you my opinion once you grade a site you've determined the the site uh which is why we don't want to do that um at Nature's Crossing or at wesboro Commerce Park we want we have 20 acres we'd like to say you all 20 acres and then you can grade it however you want to grade it um engineering you infrastructure Utilities Road all that stuff done or planned to be done within 12 to 18 months which is where we're headed but that is the number one um thing not people are not even looking at sites who will have um any risk ass associated with them so if it's not zoned right no offense but coming to a Planning Commission to get it rezoned is a risk um you don't know how that's going to happen so having everything done as much as possible done um before they even come look at

it and and how that kind of would translate with the comprehensive plan is when we are looking at a future land use map and going out to the community and kind of saying all right here's all of wboro here's undeveloped land here's land that might be Poss for redevelopment um but kind of you know looking at okay how much available industrial land do we have inside City owned outside City owned and kind of you know making those decisions as we kind of Tinker with the future land use map as a way that we could help help in that regard is there a specific place or deficit or example that Springs to mind where we have a zoning problem or zoning impediment in the city good question um generally not but two two examples we were looking for a 10 acre Highway Business site not too long ago and we had two we might only have one now um so that immediately eliminated this particular client um industrial land wants um so the city owns 205 is Acres of industrial land um the rest of the sort of available Industrial land is in basic City in a flood zone so we'll have zero industrial land on once we fill um the two industrial parks and that's um also it you know it's important to keep in mind something that I hope we be doing with the comprehensive plan is kind of looking at all right what is already developed industrial land that's being underutilized and maybe ripe for redevelopment um that we can kind of block that also out as you know kind of keeping in mind here's a possibility and then maybe there are some incentives or things that get placed on those also my question would be out of those surveys that are conducted has there been a consistency

in the industry type that has sought to make ways world like a home and if uh you are able to have those uh numbers what do we do as a city to try to recruit some of those industries that are geared more to a more diverse Workforce so we are targeting manufacturing firms and in particular Nature's Crossing rail served manufacturing firms um based on our research and the state's research there are very few 40 acre rail served sites in the midatlantic region so we think once we are um fully ready to go to market um we will have um a very unique opportunity um come comes with manufacturing comes with all levels of skill um transportation will be a question at some point for all levels of skill all shifts um Child Care will be a question at some point uh for the same thing um housing we have I'm not going to you guys are doing a great job with housing um but it's we've got a pretty good pretty good mix of of housing opportunities um within two miles of our industrial park and all the amenities that go along with that so housing child care and transportation will be issues that we'll need to address as we get more prosperous are there anything other than manufacturing that WB would seek to try to reprove at this point no um city council has um placed cidence on the two industrial parks that are manufacturing or Technology based um we trotted down the data center Road for a while um and we just do not have the electric infrastructure in place um

near our industrial parks to make that happen um so we were focused solely on manufacturing um if you look at the shenoa valley region um number of um percent of Workforce doing a certain type of skill we are well above national average on manufacturing I think it's that's 12 or 133% now our our Heritage is manufacturing uh food and beverage is a big chunk of that U we're not necessarily R2 indust parks are not necessarily set up for big food and beverage because of the utility infrastructure that we'll have in place but um manufacturing is our our key so the rationale behind that if you did know is that previous and and current Council felt that putting just a 20,000 sare foot building out there as a warehouse with one or two employees is not what we're trying to do so that's why we're driving at the manufacturing so we're trying to generate U while we're trying to generate Revenue we're trying to generate jobs so that's that's the log absolutely and that was a big house big help in 2021 where where everyone was just buying land speculatively to build Logistics supported things and we're not interested in that so are there talk about infrastructure and bringing in manufacturing I Walk The Greenway a lot and there are a lot of dilapidated buildings on the DuPont site is anything being done to revamp those attract more I know Ryder built their own uh de a year or two ago and seemed to be

prospering but the Mohawk building that's behind it seems to be empty uh is there anything on the horizon to maybe entice companies to rejuvenate that area I'll come back to dupon in a second okay um all of um all of our former manufacturing facilities so Mohawk General Electric prompton Mills um jom genicom genicom yeah um they're all full 75% full of multi-tenant people so the owners of those buildings have done a pretty good job filling them with something including I think the Mohawk building at one time was 100% full um and then they tore down the part that was unuseful Administration and building and 14ot Manufacturing and built the rider thing which is you very forward thinking um building owner at that point because he built that speculatively um the DuPont property is the DuPont property okay um and I'm not sure much is ever going to happen behind those Gates Greg can you elaborate on the transportation concerns so we for for workers who do have a car so um what can we can we get can we change the bus route to co pass there can the bus route go second shift those kinds of questions okay so primarily public transportation public transportation yeah sorry that helps clar yep yeah carwise it's in a very good spot new road two Interstate High two Interstate access points and but yeah I should have said public transportation you referenced tourism a

couple times is that part of the I think when you had said you went out and talked to the different groups there was an expectation of your office doing some tourism I'mma hop on the soap box for a second so uh Kenny or Leslie y'all can tell me later after the meeting don't do that F uh and I'm happy to accept that um I would love to see us uh somehow get into Richmond and make wesboro the fly fishing capital of the state of Virginia and put a sign on the entrance into 64 you know as people are coming in so it's just something that grabs people's attention uh because we do with the work that we've done with the dams and with the fly fishing getting people in and filling up our hotels people eating our restaurants I feel like we could push that a little bit harder it's been pushed brilliantly up to this point I think we've made ourselves informally but can we formally go down and see folks in Richmond to literally get that tag we're the fly fishing capital of wbor so we can put us sign up with V Dot literally on there I don't know if that's even possible or viable or a f pipe dream but I I feel like that would get more bodies coming off 64 uh and say well let's check this out fly fishing capital of the state of Virginia let's go um does that fall under your it does we explore all different opportunities um to do different things um that's not one of them yet but we um if you need somebody go down to Richmond uran go down there with some polls and we'll talk to some people so it's one of those things it's kind of hard to measure so we you know every time we go across the bridge you see somebody out there fly fishing but how much food do they buy do they spend overnight how much what kind of Revenue can you attach to that um so I'm not sure it might be our number one thing but again we're exploring all different types of

opportunities um for um outdoor recreation um ways to get more more people in to leave their money here and go home um absolutely so how do you measure the level of Tourism that you'd like to see and along with that what is the city's long-term preferred source of Tourism other than the outdoor recreation which I know is a large part but within outdoor recreation I can see a lot of different things especially like with fish in Greenway the Appalachian Trail things of that nature yep um we rely on the state to measure economic impact um and they come out every year in the summertime I think with economic impact from the previous year um look at a 10 or 15 year chart it's going up um every year um economic impact so we are trying to do things that will require people to stay in the city longer and if they stay in a city longer they need to buy food and need to stay overnight so that's we get our revenue from visitors coming in and we work with our partners in Stanton and Augusta County because again bigger bigger dot on the map gets more people involved um neither one of the three of us have enough to do um by themselves so um you know for example they go to the frontier culture Museum on a half a day come to the Virginia Museum of Natural History for half a day oops I got to spend the night and and then I can but I can do something else tomorrow go Hy Appalachian Trail um and and all the pieces that different people are doing parks and wreck um Street Scapes all those pieces imp add to that so as we build more Greenway Trails now all of a sudden we need a bike rental place because there's enough green ray Trail to rent a bike the the waters improved the rivers improved so now all of a

sudden need someone to rent Kayaks and know you tried you did some of that so um as as the pieces grow and add we can add more more things to do um a trail that you know the the blidge tunnel trail that connects further into Nelson County then all of a sudden we have a trail going from wesboro to Charlottesville and that becomes a bigger bike trail or hiking or walking trail so all the pieces come together um and that's what we're trying to do Nel to ask answer your question is get people to come here get people to come here and stay longer uh Greg it's on the museum that's coming to town uh that's going to be a huge attraction I think to get people here and uh how about the uh on top of the mountain uh how's the city working with that as far as getting keeping that moving and whatnot yeah we're very very much partners with Augusta County um they've received um two grants that we've been supported of to do uh master plan and infrastructure planning uh to get that run so they have a of a plan now Water and Sewer is going to be their biggest um nut to crack um the um water and sewer so the water that was up there came out of a water tank which is not viable anymore and it was a um this is well past my knowledge but an outdoor Lagoon septic tank system which um is no longer viable so again as I understand it they can connect to the city water and sewer for a price they can build their own water and sewer plant they can do some sort of outside water and sewer system and they know what all those numbers are um they' they were at process I'm not sure are they developing a master plan or is it done the latest Grant I don't know they're in the process of doing a master plan um so we're we're in contact

with them both both of us are working with them trying to figure out something to do up there that's a long way away what is the music update so the um not in this year's budget the museum uh was asked to complete all the detailed planning um so in fiscal 23 they were appropriated a million a half dollars um they got half of that in the cash half of it so we hired an architect and exhibit company um did the drawings and the plans that you probably have seen along the way ran out of the half of the cash and then it took them a year to get the other half of the cash so they're working through that now doing the actual detail plans uh more detail plans going through um the state review process so as you might imagine the architect says that needs to be stainless steel the state goes nope that needs to be shiny aluminum and meshing all those things together and that we hope to have done they hope to have done um Springtime this year so they've spent other million and a half dollars have all the building designs in place and rough idea of the exhibits then um we will U their plan is to um push hard on the administration to include the 40 million do um in in the budget a year in the governor's budget a year from that or 11 months from now um so it can go through the budget process so if that happens then you know money's available what July 1st 27 which is not really doesn't really happen on July 1st and then it takes two years so

we're three years away at least so what's the at one time correct me if I misunderstood this at one time the city was having to come out of pocket for some portion of that is that still true for the for the construction and the funding or some some part of it I can't remember exactly what the detail yeah the city council has pledged a million dollars in um in kind or in cash okay uh so the biggest chunk of that million dollars is the piece of property that it's sitting on and things had been quiet for a while but just last week the engineering firm reached out to us about parking and More Design stuff so that was positive yep part of the detail design as part of Economic Development you you had said a little bit ago Greg that wesboro Stanton and Augusta County were kind of in uh cooperation I won't say Partnerships but cooperation has wesboro ever thought about piggy piggy backing on to some of the events like Stanton has like the magic weekend because it's 25,000 people in the city of Stanton that weekend and doing something similar or or in conjunction with that to bring people here yeah we try we try not to we try hard not to compete with them um we have done some things in conjunction with them um nothing like exactly what they do but they um so the Beerworks Trail is probably the best example of the cooperation and that has now gone it's now all all the shannel valley I think so it started out at six or seven room breweries um now it's 17 or 18 breweries um amongst all the economic and tourism Partners along

the shanida valley I'm not going to do well on statistics but I think we're approaching I think we're approaching 10,000 t-shirts um in five or six years I mean it's the number of we happen to do the fulfillment in our office which was my one mistake I said sure we'll do the Fulfillment um it's just amazing so you got to go to six or eight you started out with six now I think it's eight brewes you get stamped mailed in get a t-shirt um people are crazy over the t-shirts um what's on the shirt it just says drink in drink in the sheno valley on the front and a list of breweries on the back changes color every year so it's a collectible um and I think we have many repeat the four colors of the stool more color yeah they didn't like my stool Co is the new caller this year so well thank you I've taken up way more time than Alan said I could have so thank you so much for um educating us once again yeah and I'd love to talk to you more thanks very much thank you than you all right uh next on the agenda we have staff presentations okay so tonight I'm going to give a brief presentation of the 2024 uh Planning Commission annual report um which provides a summary of what you all the planning department um has done over the course of the past year um as far as

development goes it was a pretty busy year um went over five zoning text amendments that included the four um amendments to our code that staff brought uh towards the beginning of 2024 the townhouse parking the parking lot Landscaping uh the correction to the temporary special events ordinance and then also the clarifications of the accessory buildings and structures um and then also the biggest one The Cottage Court um ordinance had two two rezonings one at 300 300 North Augusta and then also the Smith Farm PUD four conditional use permits and then four preliminary plats which in included two at Creekwood one at the the roster Avenue Amendment and then the Hopman and king um and this is is a graph that shows uh the applications that have been reviewed by the Planning Commission over the previous or the course of the last 10 years um and broadly uh this this graph looks at conditional use permits rezonings and plary plats and broadly it the application numbers have kind of stayed steady from year to year uh they range on what's more popular in a given year but broadly speaking um it has sort of state level um and here's a quick look at where in the city those applications took place in regards to the conditional use permits rezonings and preliminary plats um mostly on the Eastern side and um the western side of the Cities as far as uh residential construction goes it did remain strong throughout 2024 um you had a construction start at the summit towns and Roser Avenue subdivisions um and then you also had construction continuing at some of the older ones including Anam Marie final stages of evershire still under construction Ivy Commons of course um also Creekwood and then Kira Heights

also actually I believe got underway last year as well and then along with three new pimary plats that were approved which is the to at Creekwood the Creekwood Village phase three which is the townhouse section behind Martins Creekwood at bookerdale and then the Hopman and King subdivision um as far as residential building permits go um they have have remained fairly consistent since 2019 um 2024 did see a slight decrease um from 2023 with 138 um permits issued uh for single family uh homes and only one multifam home uh or multif family building permit issued over the course of the past year so there was a slight uh drop in those numbers in 2024 as far as other planning uh projects go uh the two big streetcape projects um are still underway the West Maine and Broad Street projects these were both funded with a 2020 round of smart scale um so the West Main project which runs from hopan Parkway to ludou Boulevard is going to replace that Center turn lane with a median and also add continuous sidewalk um on one side it is still in the engineering phase um and a second public hearing or public meeting was held uh for revised design plans back in October so that's still progressing through um as far as the Broad Street project goes that's running from the intersection of broad roster and Maine uh along Broad Street to its intersection with East M and it's basically um a very similar project it's going to replace that Center median um and also add several pedestrian improvements sidewalk um Crossings um along that Corridor and it is also still in the engineering phase with its first public meeting held in August so it's a little behind the West Main project but still progressing um with the design

plans uh the 14th Street project finally got underway this year um it was funded with um what was formerly called open container funds it's now called Transportation Alternatives it was funded back in 2016 um it will be providing a continuous sidewalk along 14th Street from Wayne Avenue at the library all the way to Magnolia Avenue um it will upgrade The Pedestrian Crossing at Wayne um and also provide curb ramps throughout all the intersections along 14th Street um fill in missing sections of sidewalk um overall good project um construction started this fall and it's expected to clude conclude in the spring so it's it's well underway yeah we had a actually had a construction um update meeting today so obviously with the weather they're moving a little slower right now but um are hopeful that next week when the temperatures go up they'll be laying more concrete um Virginia highway safety program hsip um they Vita did open that Grant round again this year and the city did put in another application this time for 20 intersections and focusing entirely on pedestrian improvements um it's we were told that it will be more competitive this year so we'll see what what manages to get funded but we did put in for 20 um we did find out um in the fall that our 2023 Applications had been funded um and so that was a group of three applications that included um unsignalized intersection improvements so things like signage and stop stop bars uh 25 intersections that will have um pedestrian improvements so kurd ramps and um High Vis crosswalks um rapid flashing beacons that sort of thing and then also a curve better curv delineation um of that curve out by basic City Bur

right there um and then ALS then finally believe this is final uh the smart scale round six opened this in the spring of 2024 and the city did uh put in for three projects in this round uh The ludt Pedestrian project which provides sidewalk would fill in the missing missing portions of sidewalk along lud Boulevard um wesboro Transit Access Project which would provide bus stop improvements for a number of the bus stops um across the city and then finally again for the Blue Ridge Tunnel connector trail that would connect the east side of wboro with the cro tunnel um city will be notified late this spring if we are officially awarded funding um staff found out last week that the V do staff had recommended the the transit Access Project be recommended for funding um but we do not know for sure if it has been or not it's typical um so it's called like the um recommended funding scenario um it's typical that that is what's funded that there's not a lot of tinkering after the fact because what smart scale is is essentially um trying to take kind of politics out of Transportation improvements and it's essentially uh metrics that the project is based on and judged upon and they vary from Northern Virginia to our area whether congestion rates higher or Economic Development rates higher um so likely uh the funding the recommended funding scenario will be what happens and so that unfortunately is that we didn't get the ludt pedestrian project or the Blue Ridge Tunnel um but the wesboro transit Access Project is recommended for funding I can't remember the specific amount um I want to say $2 million is coming to mind was the ask for the wboro transit Access Project and I want to say it improves six six or seven bus stops in the city to kind of provide you know a shelter an

actual shelter enclosed area where someone can sit for the bus um and then upgraded you know minimal sidewalk areas to create con connections or Ada Rams um and yeah those applications are scor scored by those five metrics the safety congestion mitigation accessibility Economic Development Environmental Quality Al I have a question sure uh is there a way for the current bus stops to be maybe better identifiable cuz like I know there's a couple of Florence and I think there's one on Port Republic in particular that comes to mind that have the signs of course but if you're not paying attention or if you just don't know you would never know that those signs were there I didn't know if there was like maybe lighting that could be placed where the signs are on the poll to kind of identify like this is stop um so I I will say that there is a kind of regional body um that sets uh a technical advisory body that reviews um kind of the placement of new bus stops and alisand and I actually both set on that um advisory committee there's also um someone who you know regularly rides the system that serves there's representatives from Augusta County and Stanton um but in terms of you know they Place those signs and that body approves where a new stop may be located so I know Stant has come recently they have a couple more apartment projects that they've approved and the bus stop wasn't on their schedule so they've come and asked kind of the regional body to approve a stop there um but as far as the quality of the stop you know does it have lighting does it have um a structure a covered shelter that in my understanding is the responsibility of the locality um and so this Grant

application um you know in trying to be competitive rather than tackle every single bus stop within the city that we didn't think would get us funding um we kind of I don't know if Pilot's the right word but essentially looked at the six or seven bus stops within the city that are most utilized that the writers ship numbers are the highest and that's where we made application for um we could certainly you know the smart scale is every two years so you could always um put in a future Grant to do some additional ones um and then the other possibility is the Department of rail and public transportation also puts out a Grant it does require a local match whereas smart scale does not but that's another Avenue that the city could use to apply for um upgrades but um I guess just as far as any those improvements it would be a a locality funding decision or Grant to to upgrade them now and I'm not sure how much it costs to put in standing shelter with additional upgrades at those stop but with some of the Lesser use stops I imagine that there might not necessarily have to be an immediate use case for a standing structure and I'm not sure but I'd imagine maybe a light isn't as expensive as a standing structure like or just like a small Beacon just to identify the driver and the passengers I'm not sure what that price is that could possibly be worked in to the current Supply still funding yeah so the the stops if I'm remembering right for this scramp funding application were the stop um outside of the Middle School that'll have specifically there's only yeah we've already chosen with the application what those six stops are and

those FS have to be used specific for those stops yes yeah well that kind of answers that but it it's um outside of the middle school over near the food line behind the D m v um lud ludt across from like where the new Fire station's going to be kind of in that vicinity um one is at Kroger and then one is at the what's the name of that gas station on East M like Delphine and Speedway the speedway an improved stop there I think does that cover all of oh and then an improved one at Walmart in the parking lot and the where the existing one is in the parking lot but trying to upgrade that one so I think that covers the six yeah I was saying on the uh applications three applications submitted the slide that you that was up there already uh you you said that the uh the one in the middle was the only one that was approved and the one above and below the Blue Ridge connector Grill oh the SM on that the uh right there so is is that do we have to wait another two years now so we've yeah we've put in for the Blue Ridge Tunnel connector Trail I think this is the third time we've put in for smart scale and then we've also put in a federal raise Grant twice or it used to be build build Grant we put in for that once and then rais two or three so we have um we continue to look for grants for that project but um writing on the wall is kind of like smart scale isn't isn't the way to go for that one um but yeah smart scale is only every

two years that you can make application for that um you know the we have been awarded EF flap grant funding that's doing some of those kind of um engineering um but yes smart scale is every two years and that's the that does not require a match and that is the process by which we as a locality can only put in four Transportation applications they're very detailed applications you have to have studies behind them like if you were going to put in a new road alignment you have to have a very detailed engineering study very detailed cost estimates um you make application and then they get rated by those metrics across the state and then you can see where you know the Stanton District which is the VT District were a part of you know what projects got um approved for them and all over Virginia but that's the the system are we looking at at other sources in for that drill it yes I think we're always looking to to find I think the price tag on that project is I want to say like 12 million or 12 to 15 million that's been um and I'm not even sure that's a great estimate it's just kind of a based on conceptual planning um you know we I think we we put in for the raise Federal grant um we didn't do it this past year I can't remember I think February is when it's due um but can certainly you know keep looking towards towards that it doesn't seem like smart scale is going to be the the funding mechanism for it is there a drawing or layout of where this Trail is going we have a conceptual yeah is it is the railroad crossing what keeps getting it turned down where we got to go either under or over the railroad track um it you know I don't I wouldn't say it's what gets it turn down because like smart scale they're looking at very

specific metrics um so I'm not sure it'll it ever will fit the smart scale model okay but the like the raise grant that we put in for um I think some of the feedback we've gotten when we've done a debrief with them is like hey we think this is a great project but they want to see where it's move you know it's more it's a little bit more of a tourism project rather than a transportation project and especially with the raise Grant they want to see that um individuals um disadvantaged communities are being able to be moved not just for recreation but to get to employment and it's been a little bit harder of something for us to demonstrate with this alignment so it's just I think finding the right the right grant um keep working towards that where is the East Main carer Fall in with all of this that we approve so that's a that's a smart scale project that was funded in I guess the 2020 round also or maybe the 2022 round yeah um so it is in we uh the city has contracted with Rinker Design Associates engineering firm and it that project is in the design stages so probably not constructed until um thinking you won't see construction until 2027 2028 yeah well that's I think that was a date that was given when we approved it way way back but it is in the design stages so I think by the end of the month the city will have 30% plans to review and then they'll move to their 60% their 100% we'll have some additional Community meetings and Outreach um but yes it's in the design stage just so to curiosity is the design going to put the sign back across the road that used to say welcome to

wesboro um so that project we also when we engaged our engineer um the amount that the city asked for is not enough to cover the entirety of that project so something that we will be doing is going out for another bucket of funding called Revenue share which is a 50/50 the locality pays 50% the state pay pays 50% um so we have to kind of get additional funding to even finalize that project um but I don't think the sign is a component of the project it would be you know something we could pursue after but this is more a a medium streetcape kind of beautification access management um eliminating entrances Safety project now when we reviewed that all those years ago um they were going to put 8 foot wide multi-use path on one side of the road down uh the street I don't know if that made it into design but at the time you know I suggested why not bury the utilities while you're digging I mean you ain't got to go but two more feet deep and put them in a Chase and a Raceway under that walk and then then you don't have power lines hanging up there that are success susceptible to power allies yeah I mean with that we have um as a locality we have very little control over the public utility yeah um so they do work with us if we need um polls moved for projects um they've worked with us kind of at on on their dime moving the polls um but you know I've had some calls with our legal council and kind of other localities and

um I do not think that I know that this project has not plan to fund undergrounding of utilities I was just curious if that got thrown in a long the way because it's been a long time since that project was discussed yeah yeah one place that I have absolutely no data to support um but anecdotally observed and have a bully pulpit to share with you at this very moment um um that I might suggest we might look at smart scale in the future is Rosser Avenue the pedestrian traffic particularly with the new development that's going on along there I notice constant pedestrian traffic and with the new development I know we're going to have sidewalk part of the way on one side with on the let me think about this west side of Rosser um but I I know with some of the private homes and stuff down there at the corner maybe and there's much more space on the other side if we need a pedestrian Crossing anyway it's just something to to put on your radar to maybe think about if it's not already because it's something that I certainly see regularly yeah so smart scale is an option for those types of projects there's also something called Transportation Alternatives um uh the you know the great thing about smart scale is it's 100% not locality funds um the transportation Alternatives is 8020 so the locality does have to put in 20% of the total cost um those are also every two years and they're on opposite years a smart scale so um yes all those things are things we keep in mind and things that as we work on our comprehensive plan and work on the transportation section of our comprehensive plan um you know hopefully we'll have more marching orders in the future of okay these are the projects that we want to take off the list because a lot of the ones that were in last Conference of plan have thankfully um been funded and are well on their way to to being constructed so

yeah now the 14th Street sidewalk that's a continuation of the greenway correct yes it is yeah okay kudos to a killer year I just joined the commission three months ago and I read this report and went sounds like a busy year uh one thing I was looking for in the report and didn't see out of continuation just curious for an update uh the roundabout on Rosser and 13 where are we with that so um that is a public works managed project it is in I want to say 60 or maybe close to 100% design plans um timon's group is the engineer that's working on that um so I'm thinking you'd see construction 2026 maybe 2027 but that one's moving right along y are they doing the design work for the other two proposed traffic circles the one at Burger King and the other one down it Speedway the one at Burger King is a um so with smart scale um you can either locally administer these projects or they can be administered by V do so like um West Maine and the Broad Street project are being administered by V do so the city is definitely involved but we're not the project manager and and working constantly with kind of the design engineer um the East Main Street streetcape we are locally administered Ing and that falls within my department the uh the other roundabout that you just mentioned that's Public Works administered um so the one at Burger King is V do administered it's I guess twoe we just applied for that in the last round of smart scale so typically when you apply for a smart scale project so 2024 we get this funding for the bus stops you won't see it constructed for six years um so

that's just something to keep in mind so 2020 two is when we applied for the one at Burger King so that's you know no three years away before we're even designing but that's V do administered um the roundabout that's proposed at East M and deline um I think is going to transition to a signal replacement because once they started looking at you know the numbers were dropping traffic numbers were dropping and so it made sense to put a roundabout in there of a certain size um but then now projecting out the traffic numbers they're realizing you'd have to put a much larger roundabout in there and then the RightWay implications and all that so that will likely transition to a signal replacement project and Public Works is also managing that which is funny because one one comment I'll make about sidewalks I think they're great and I agree we need more of them but uh with this recent weather uh I even in the areas where there are sidewalks either the city's not keeping them clean or the residents are not cleaning the sidewalks off and you got people walking down the street yeah and they're out on the road because of the snow against the side against the sidewalk it's sad I mean I think the city needs to look into enforcing residents clean your sidewalks and also the city has to do a better job of cleaning the city sidewalks so I've seen a lot of that you can see see it now cuz the snow's not going anywhere so I just want to mention well it's somebody that was in charge of a lot of snow removal for many a years at University the city not this city will cover you up after you clean it

so I was responsible for the sidewalk all the way around Scott Stadium all the way to the hospital down jpa of course that's a wide Road when the city comes through they come through four trucks at a time and they bury it so when we finally got snow blowers and little minis skids I was I had five blowers and two minis skids at my disposal I put Uvas snow blowers and many years in the street and blew the snow over our sidewalk so that when when it was cleaned and the City come through they didn't have enough snow to cover us back up but I'm sure wesboro doesn't have the money in the public works budget to have 25 Min steer skids running around wesboro blowing snow over it over the road over the sidewalks so we can all get excited about hopefully warmer temperatures next week and hopefully things melt but yeah excellent is that that is all I have for you on the annual report excellent well thank you for your work on the annual report I will note for the record that any um grammatical errors in the commissioner uh chair's section or my responsibility alone I didn't see any but you know you didn't use spell Che what's that you didn't use spell check I did use spell check I you know was running on yeah well I I mentioned I might happen to have one recently made and if we just um I I do plan to present the annual report um before City Council on Monday so um I don't know if this is

required but it I think it'd be nice to get a vote to approve the your annual report um so that then it's the official report that will present to council all right uh so does anybody have a motion I made the motion that we approve the annual report so that it can be presented before city council I'll second all in favor I any opposed hearing none motion carries all right um next up we have minor subd excuse me minor subdivisions and final subdivisions approved since the November 19th 2024 meeting I have quite a few of these for you this evening it's busy November and December in this regard um so the first one I have for you is 1021 Fry Street uh this is T Max numbers 38-2 D4 and this is lot six and seven and you really can't see it um but it's this lot here and then this lot right here um and so what this plat was doing was just basically dividing uh each of those lots into two for single family detached residential that's just the cover sheet uh the second one I have for you this evening is1 chanida Village Drive which is tax B number 60-1 d56 and this is of course the north Gman parcel uh behind Target and with this one they uh subdivided the parcel into two um so you you have the second second parcel here and then you have the main North Gman parcel right here is there anything planned for the unused I think that'll be announced in the

future for yeah for added drama um um the third plot I have for you tonight is uh the Town Center Drive apartments uh parcel uh it's two Parcels 150 P Buckle Moss Drive and then 651 Town Center Drive um and so this was originally two parcels and so they are res subdividing it into four Parcels um three commercial Parcels along the uh I guess it's P Buckley Moss Drive so they frage on PE Buckley Moss Drive and then the larger parcel uh in the rear for for the apartments is there any targeted commercial like uh industry type that's coming into those spes um we've received a site plan for the corner uh this this lot which looks to be a convenience store gas station um type use but that's all we know about at this time okay another another gas station well at least it ain't a car walk we went through a spell where every every corner was about to get one I don't know there's no gas station on that side of the road BP I mean xon is there is there one is that a is there one right there that still sells gas but that one's is that in the county the exxon's in the county okay but but if you come down there what's what's the other one I think there's sheets sheets no no I'm I was just thinking between there and Stewart oh it's I meant between I was just thinking between there as you go out of the city that way L the lad one's out there anyways think that's a yeah um so the fourth one I have for you is zero gun Street uh this is Tax Mount

numbers 5 excuse me 56-3 lots 1 through five um this came before the Planning Commission a couple years ago to divide the property into five parcels uh plat came into our office uh last month to remove those lot lines and just have it be one parcel instead is that in anticipation of residential development that would be better suited by a different so so this was before it came in and was five Lots it was what we call like a paper Street subdivision where it had gotten laid out a long time ago but none of the infrastructure was put in um so I think the owner was interested and hopeful in kind of reconfiguring that um applied to vacate some RightWay paid for that right away and thought you know kind of putting five large Lots um and then I I we've had a lot of interest from people coming in to to look at possibilities of developing there um I think the the property has some development challenges um and they were unable they've been unable to sell it so I think um you know maybe the Hope was that it would be it would sell better as one parcel can can you go back a slide to so I can see the where exactly is this it's this par right here right it's at the end of gun Street yeah right at the tail end of gun Street it backs up to the and the county the big parcel between 250 and 64 that's owned by the U Greek family right this parcel does I don't think it's well it could touch that in Oh I thought it did so if you look to the red star you can see kind of where it is in relation to not property the city there's guns so is that is that elen Dr elen elen Circle what wraps around yeah so

okay so gun gun Street doesn't exist there right it's it exists down off of 10th but up there it's not gun Street I mean if you built a road there it would be gun Street but it's gun street it's addressed as yeah doesn't exist yeah yeah yeah it's so it's at the end of 11 attracting residents what's that it's a great name for tracking gun Street come to gun street so that the intent for that uh five lot five large plot um development well is is it meant for residential development it's zoned for residential development um so now they've applied and we've approved to get rid of the five lots and it is just one one lot it is zoned RS7 RS7 yes so could be like a like a there could be RS7 is single family detached only um so that if they wanted to do something different they would have to apply for a rezoning so as of now what could just possibly be there's just one big house uh or yeah a house with land okay how many acres was it or it's about five acres or so five acres yep approximately is that in a flp plan no no no it's up on the side of a mountain I think I remember right this is the so there's air liquid so if you turn right on off a deline and go up the hill it's at the top of the hill there oh okay as you start going up on 64 so yeah we had we had developers interested in it when it was five Lots there are development challenges um you know you you could see a rezoning in the future potentially um if someone wanted to develop it differently than just a single family house if I remember right there was no right away to that property right or is it isn't there a creep yeah but yeah so they would have that you can see the culdesac there is

platted so they would improve to well I mean I guess if they just did one single family house they could run a driveway off of it oh okay but essentially removing the five lots and making one lot at this time y there a Str Topo M okay so the final one I have for you is 221 oage Lane and this is between tax map members 31-6 D3 and 31-6 D5 um so it's parcel here with the building on it and then the parcel back behind it um and what this plat was doing was basically just a lot line adjustment um the owners of this building wanted to expand their parking lot in the in the back and in order to be able to do that they needed to um adjust the property line to give them the space to do that so they can adjust expand their parking lot um so this was a lot line adjustment plat to give them a little extra land uh in order to accomplish that and that is all I have for you this evening all right last we have public comment for items not on the agenda seeing no members of the public present we move along um unless we yes unless we need have Mr Hitchens has more to tell us but um and matter from staff I do not think I have anything and Commissioners correspondence and communication anybody have anything I I've got a question on something uh The Village at embre what what is the status on that um um

so other than knowing that it that it's something that they might be interested in doing to put some kind of multiple units on a property there um we don't have any application okay so that that all is to be coming forward I guess when they move on it m okay so we the way it's currently zoned you couldn't put multiple units on that piece of property um so you would see some application to kind of AFF effectuate uh the goals or interests of that organization and other than kind of knowing about that peripherally or speaking with them about future plans we haven't received any applications could that fall under the Cottage Court type thing I think that yes the The Cottage Court ordinance would be something they could pursue rezone the property to Cottage Court or not reson because it's a conditional use permit so apply for a conditional use permit to do Cottage Court housing um that could be something and that could be an application we receive it it couldn't be done without something like that yeah okay unless they were just to develop by right along the road and the Frontage that they have um okay yeah I would like to uh congratulate Kenny on his historic win as our mayor I know you'll do great things for the city and I'm excited to see feel keep ask as usual Nigel stole my thunder um my apologies thank you all right um hearing no further correspond did you did you announce that Nigel is also the vice chair of the school board I did not but pleas congratulations young man is doing

things I appreciate it all right thank you for correcting that oversight on my part uh any do we have anything else all right uh with that do I have a motion to adjourn I'll make a motion to adjourn second all in favor say I I any opposed hearing none motion carries we are adjourned